Iraola next? 7 managers who superbly managed the step-up to a bigger job | OneFootball

Andoni Iraola looks set to become the next manager to test himself at a much higher level, with Liverpool waiting in the wings following his departure from Bournemouth.

The Basque coach did a superb job to lead the Cherries to their highest-ever Premier League finish of sixth place, and with it Europa League football. Whether that means he has what it takes at a club the size of Liverpool remains to be seen, and we’ve seen plenty of managers fail to make the step up.

Here are seven managers who did superb work going from a mid-sized club to a really big one.

Mauricio Pochettino – Southampton to Tottenham

You look at the ‘Big Six’ era, and it’s far more common to find examples of managers who have done solid work at midtable sides only to be chewed up and spat out after struggling with the demands that taking charge of a really big club entails.

David Moyes was the ultimate example, but we’ve also seen Roy Hodgson, Graham Potter and Thomas Frank among those who’ve been found wanting. Gulp. Good luck, Andoni.

The one glittering counterexample in the Premier League was Pochettino going from Southampton to Tottenham.

In fairness, going from eighth-placed Saints to sixth-placed Spurs wasn’t a colossal leap. A natural next step. They’d competed in just one Champions League campaign before the Argentinian’s appointment and were far from the would-be ‘European Super League’ giants that Poch’s fine work turned them into.

Back in 2014, it was unthinkable that Spurs would finish 2nd in the Premier League, reach a Champions League final and finish ahead of Arsenal for six seasons running. How they’re crying out for Roberto De Zerbi to make a similar impact today.

Harry Redknapp – Portsmouth to Tottenham

That one season, before Poch, that Spurs got into the Champions League? Redknapp’s work. It would’ve been two were it not for Chelsea’s Champions League win in 2012.

The veteran wasn’t quite as transformative when it came to tactics or changing the club culture, and success wasn’t as sustained, but Tottenham made great strides forward after years of being UEFA Cup also-rans.

By the time he took over in 2008, he’d racked up hundreds of Premier League games in charge of West Ham, Southampton and Portsmouth.

It was his work at the latter, miraculously leading them to an FA Cup, that demonstrated he was worthy of a bigger gig. And when the opportunity finally presented itself, he grasped it with both hands.

Brendan Rodgers – Swansea to Liverpool

You could argue that Rodgers is a stretch, given the manner in which his tenure at Liverpool fizzled out.

And you might well argue that he was simply blessed to have a generational talent like Luis Suarez, as with Mohamed Salah under Arne Slot, inspiring Liverpool to giddy heights.

We’re not necessarily going to disagree there, but the fact remains that Liverpool went from a mid-table laughing stock rabble to a side that challenged for the title. That’s not to be sniffed at.

Given all the Brentisms exposed in the Being: Liverpool, it’s easy to dismiss Rodgers. But he did a good job at Swansea City, and him landing the Liverpool job felt well-earned enough at the time.

Luis Enrique – Celta Vigo to Barcelona

A bit like Zinedine Zidane, Frank Lampard or Steven Gerrard, Enrique’s playing career did a lot of the heavy lifting when it came to landing managerial jobs.

That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as Zizou and Enrique have demonstrated. Their trophy-laden, elite-level playing careers made them ideal candidates to relate to the superstar egos in the Real Madrid and Barcelona dressing rooms.

You wouldn’t necessarily have tipped him to become a three-time Champions League winner, widely regarded as one of the best coaches in world football, when he did a solid but relatively unspectacular job to lead Celta Vigo to 9th in 2013-14.

The Galician outfit have just finished 6th, but nobody is tipping Claudio Giraldez for the big jobs.

Luis Enrique clearly been earmarked for the Barcelona job since succeeding Pep Guardiola in charge of the B Team, and after Tata Martino’s trophyless tenure, the opportunity presented itself.

Ernesto Valverde – Athletic Club to Barcelona

After Luis Enrique departed in 2017, Barcelona turned to another manager who had an impressive CV but little truly top-level experience.

He had led Espanyol to a UEFA Cup final, and won three successive Greek Super League titles with Olympiacos, before writing his name into Athletic Club folklore with the Spanish Super Cup.

Valverde didn’t lead Barcelona to the remarkable heights that his predecessor did – not in Europe, at least, with shock eliminations to Roma and Liverpool – but he quietly did a decent job to keep up their domestic dominance following Neymar’s potentially destabilising move to PSG and the generally shambolic recruitment during Josep Maria Bartomeu’s presidency.

Barca won back-to-back La Liga titles, as well as the Copa del Rey, in his first couple of seasons at the helm.

Antonio Conte – Siena to Juventus

Claudio Ranieri led Juventus back up out of their second-tier wilderness, and the Italian giants then cycled a few forgettable names (Ciro Ferrara, Alberto Zaccheroni, Luigi Delneri – who? Exactly) as they came back to the big time with successive seventh-place finishes.

It wasn’t until the return of their legendary former midfielder Antonio Conte that the Old Lady returned to their former glories.

In the aftermath of Calciopoli, Conte was cutting his teeth as a coach with a series of modest jobs. After leading both Bari and Siena to promotions from Serie B, Conte took over at Juventus and changed everything.

Juve’s historic nine-in-a-row Scudetti all started with Conte. He was at the helm for the first of the three, and since then he’s won further league titles with Chelsea, Inter and Napoli.

Jurgen Klopp – Mainz to Borussia Dortmund

“Jurgen Klopp’s enthusiasm for football suits BVB perfectly. He is someone who loves constructive, attacking football,” Borussia Dortmund’s sport director Michael Zorc said at a press conference after the appointment back in 2008.

“He has proven in the past that he can develop a team.”

An inspired decision.

Borussia Dortmund had finished a disappointing 13th when they dispensed with the services of Klopp’s predecessor Thomas Doll. They were the second biggest club in Germany, but they were miles off challenging Bayern.

Klopp, meanwhile, had recently left Mainz after failing to lead them back up into the Bundesliga.

Still, his exceptional work in seasons gone by – leading them to two midtable finishes, despite them having the lowest budget in the division – had not gone forgotten.

He took on one of the youngest squads in the Bundesliga and built something remarkable.

An early German Super Cup victory over Bayern Munich was but a hint of the peaks that would follow, with two Bundesliga titles and a Champions League final appearance.